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Although most immigrants seem to successfully manage the challenges their immigration process entails, suicide mortality of minority groups has become an important public concern, particularly in countries with growing segments of immigrant populations such as Norway. The present article aimed to summarize insights into suicide among various immigrant populations, obtained by three Norwegian studies we recently conducted utilizing the unique possibilities of national population registers. First-generation immigrants had a relatively lower risk of suicide than native Norwegians, whereas the risks for people with mixed Norwegian and immigrant background were significantly higher. Suicide risk was associated with a range of socio-economic disadvantages in all populations, but the strength of the association differed by specific immigration background, with a generally weaker association in first-generation-immigrants than natives. In the meantime, there were notable differences in characteristics of suicide by immigration background with respect to method of suicide, month of the year when suicide occurred, and time to suicide since immigration. All these insights underscore the importance of treating immigrants as a very heterogeneous group, and differences in suicides by specific immigration background should be considered when planning public health policies and prevention measures in order to more effectively tailor these measures to at-risk immigrant populations.

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